Summer Palace and the Great Wall

The next morning we finally joined the 28 others from our group and headed to the Summer Palace. May 1 weekend is a big holiday in China and Beijing was jammed with people. If was wall to wall as we tried to navigate the Summer Palace grounds. we did have a short boat ride across the lake and picked the bus up for the trip to the Wall. We stopped for a Chinese lunch (provided) at a Friendship shore. They are stores where the prices are sky high but the quality is backed by the government. Finally the Wall. It is all you think it will be. We picked the "hard" climb - what else is new. One advantages was that although it was very steep, there were very few people on it and we could enjoy the beauty of the achievement of building the Wall. I should mention that there were vendors up on the wall as well as all over the entrance area. I did find something of interest that I bought. After it was back to the hotel and a meal with Chinese dancers and entertainment.
 

Friday saw us at Tienanmen Square except this time it was wall to wall people. The photos will bear proof of that. Then over to the Forbidden city. Now that was crowded beyond belief. It was more than we imagined with the size of the ground and the number of buildings. Then it was time for lunch - what else Chinese food Chinese style and the trip to the ship. We finally boarded the Diamond at about 5 in the afternoon.
With the 13 hour time change we are still a bit off; awake at odd hours. Our table has 8 people at it and they all know Bob and Marilyn who got us together for the trip and then had to cancel for medical reasons. We only knew Nanette and Jerry from a previous cruise. However because of the pre-tour we have plenty of familiar faces. The ship currently has about 1900 people on it. We are headed to Japan on a sea day. I will give you an update of Dalian later. Cheers

China on our Own

On Monday we finally got on the United flight. Because we were a rebook, we ended up at the back of the plane in the middle seats. For 13 hours we were not able to see anything! 2 meals and a snack later, after 3 movies we arrived at the very impressive Beijing airport. Of course we had already missed the flight to the Terra Cotta warriors.
We were met at the airport by Bessy from the tour company and taken to the Beijing hotel. When asked what do we do now she answered "Free Time for 2 days". after checking in we wandered to Tiemanen Square and the Forbidden city. After all the time changes we were pretty tired.
The next day during "Free Time" we went to the silk market. 5 floors of vendors all selling the same stuff. The aisles were very narrow and the stalls about 10 feet wide. Every vendor began yelling for attention and offering a special price. They also would grab you as you went by. Funny that the Chinese people were not bothered. I looked at a belt that started at 375 local currency and ended up paying 40 for it. Judy bought a few small items. After that it was over to the Temple of the Sun for a look, following down embassy row and finally a stop for a Yanglin beer. The restaurant (off the tourist trap) did not understand the order for beer and a tea. We did manage. Back to the hotel and finally our for Chinese food at a courtyard restaurant. It was excellent. That was about it for our first full day in China

Travelling To Chicago

We left Windsor on Saturday night with our driver and assistant picking us up at the appointed time. After a nice dinner in Detroit, we were dropped off at the Weston Hotel on the airport grounds. We wanted to be close to the airport to avoid delays.
The next morning we sailed through customs without a problem although Orange level was in effect. Boarded the plane on time. After about 30 minutes in the air (for a trip that takes about an hour) the pilot announces that we are circling over Grand Rapids and will not have enough fuel to stay in the air. We were 19th in the priority list to land. Seems that thunderstorms over Chicago held up traffic. We landed in Fort Wayne refuelled and waited 45 minutes. we finally arrived in Chicago 4 hours after taking off from Detroit and about 90 minutes after our flight to China left. There is only 1 flight a day.
Needless to say we needed to rebook and were going to miss part of the China tour. We ended up staying the night in a Chicago hotel with only our backpacks. We did manage to get on the flight the next morning.....

Time To Go!!

It seems like we have been packing for days and for some reason we have more room (less weight) this time than in others! We did receive some good news from Penny our travel agent at CAA. Princess cruise lines contacted her to inform us that we were upgraded to a mini-suite on Dolphin deck right in the mid part of the ship. This means that either Princess likes our business or more likely that the ship will be half full? and they are filling in the mini-suites. That of course means that I will have a better chance to win at trivia if nobody else is on the cruise, Think of the service.
Be sure to complete the survey at the bottom of the blog. United Airlines here we come!

Ready To Travel Again

As the spring rains come and gone in Windsor, it must be time to travel again. We are just about to leave on a trip that has been in the planning stages for about 15 months. Usually we pick a cruise and go but friends in California suggested that we book the cruise and see them again. Now that we are ready to go, they had to cancel due to medical reasons. In any case we are 6 days from leaving for China and then the 23 days with the Diamond Princess sailing to Alaska and then on to Vancouver. Watch this space for our travel plans.

P.S. To Cruise Adventure #8

This ends the current postings to the blog. I may try to upload a few pictures later but that will just be for my practice. No further travel posting will be forthcoming but I will notify you (if you don't mind) of when the blog will be active again. We are headed for Calgary in mid June and intend to do some alpine wildflower hicks so we may post something on that trip. Thanks to those who left comments!
Cheers
Rick and Judy

Barcelona Good Bye and Return to Windsor

It really is nice to return to a keyboard that is more than 4 inches and I can actually use without a microscope which is what it was like using the hand held that Chris had with him. If you received the first blog from Barcelona and could not decipher it, the problem was using the small screen and some of the things that the keyboard did on its own. Then it would not support spellcheck (or eye check for that matter. I did go back and correct it so if you want to see the actual posting you need to go to the web site.
Our last day was spent travelling the Gothic centre of Barcelona which is the oldest part of town where you can still see portions of the Roman defensive system which and now part of some of the buildings. The Cathedral was very impressive but in general the Spanish Churches are very different from the ones that you see all over Italy. Yesterday I mentioned the waiting for Chris and did not elaborate much on the whole area. It is a great place if you like crowded narrow streets and shops that are on a siesta in the middle part of the day. It was a national holiday weekend and there was wall to wall (or is it building to building in the narrow streets) people.
After just touring around, it was time for the mid afternoon beer in a sidewalk cafe. Only problem was that Judy had some specific ideas - not to crowded (like that was going to happen), in the sun, quiet. After walking for about 45 minutes we settled on the main street with about 8 lanes of traffic! However it was sunny and the beer was extremely cold. Brigitte went to work immediately talking to the people next to us (an oilman(?) U.S. but living in Copenhagen) and her must have overheard us talking about splitting another beer - I could not guess if Chris wanted another - but no sooner had we talked about this that 3 half liters of draft arrived courtesy of the couple! Apparently Brigitte does this all the time - talks to strangers (good for her!) and pets stray dogs but that is another story.
Dinner was near the Gaudi church where there are plenty of restaurants (bars) serving "Tapas(?) which are dishes of food on display and you just order various plates. It was a fitting end to the 3 great days we spent with Chris and Brigitte in Barcelona.
Yesterday we were up early for our 10 am flight. Chris and Brigitte we going to spend the day touring before taking the overnight train down the coast. The Delta flight back was uneventful but we they did have wine available and served both lunch, ice cream and a pizza snack on the nearly 9 hour trip. JFK was backed up and after easily clearing immigration, we were about 90 minutes late getting to Detroit.
I do have to say something about our transportation home. By the time we got to the baggage area (a long way from where the plane landed) our driver and his assistant were already loading it into the back of a beautiful black Mercedes. In fact he had 3 offers for driving jobs from other people while he was waiting for us. Now John was dressed in black and looks like a limo driver! Yvonne the assistant was flagging the luggage and spotted our bags from the name tags. All in all a wonderful pick up. Many thanks to our good friends who got us home in style where we had a chance to share a bottle of wine. But the best part of ending the trip with this limo driver and assistant is getting invited to dinner today! They are highly recommended to anyone needing a lift.